This Just In: Smoking Harmful

The newly proposed tobacco warning labels carry blunt phrases like “Smoking can kill you” and “Cigarettes cause cancer” and “Tobacco smoke can harm your child.” That’s all sufficiently tame, I suppose. But some fear the group has overstepped its bounds in the frighteningly repulsive pictures placed adjacent to the warnings. Here’s a sampling:

And these are just a few of the 33 hair-raising prototypes.

Though some fear the FDA has gone too far this time, let us not forget some of the bold ad campaigns of the past. Like this woman, for example, who reminds us that smoking can change your voice from alto to robot.

Or this one, showing Big Tobacco that the consequences of their products not only include rampant death, but also have the potential to encourage mass grave robbery.

It’s too early to know the long- or even short-term effect these ads will have, but it’s certainly nothing new. If smokers aren’t yet aware of the risks they take when lighting up, they’re probably just not interested. And I have a feeling Altria, Philip Morris, and Reynolds American aren’t all that interested, either.